The Duke returns Lard 1-5-11

Douglas LeeJan 5, 2011 7:45 AM

Good Morning, Broncos fans! John Elway is officially a member of the Denver Broncos again, having signed a contract last night that makes him the organization's Executive VP of Football Operations. Woody Paige was apparently given an exclusive interview with Elway last night after the contract was finalized. Elway said,

This is all I've really wanted to do since I retired as a player. Football has been my life. I've waited for years, but the timing is perfect. The stars are aligned.

Additionally, Elway stated that Brian Xanders will in fact "be responsible for most of the personnel decisions, the scouting, the draft," and that the search for a new head coach is expected to be completed within a week or two. Elway cited an odd-sounding "study" Xanders performed of previous NFL coaches to placate the folks calling for the hiring of a head coach with a background in defense. Elway said of Tim Tebow,

I was impressed with what he did in the last three games, considering how few reps and plays in games before that, but the questions now are can he translate that grit, the winning attitude, that athletic ability into maturing into a great quarterback on the pro level.

According to Paige, the Broncos will seek permission to interview Saints DC Gregg Williams and Giants DC (and former Bills interim coach) Perry Fewell in addition to Mike Mularkey and Eric Studesville, and that there will be more candidates added in the next day or two. Elway says he did not have an opportunity to speak with Jim Harbaugh about the coaching job at Monday night's Orange Bowl.

UPDATE 10:05AM ET - According to denverbroncos.com, Elway will be introduced at a 1:30PM MT press conference which the team's site will stream live. We'll have an open thread here on IAOFM for your commentary.

Broncos

Klis points out that Matt Millen and Dan Marino are the only NFL stars to take FO positions without having been a scout, coach or personnel man in the interim. This is clearly a valid concern, although partially tempered by Elway's experience running the Colorado Crush and hopefully countless hours spent talking shop with his late father Jack, who was the Broncos' head of pro personnel scouting for many years. But for those hoping Elway is the next Ozzie Newsome, Klis reminds us that Newsome worked 11 years in scouting and personnel before his elevation to GM in Baltimore. Best part of the column? Klis actually gets Millen's "wisdom" on how Elway has to attack his new job...

According to LJ, there will be an introductory presser later today for Elway. Plus, more on the Broncos' interest in Fewell, Mularkey and Williams.

Related

I will make an exception for you here jvill but you should know that if you want my attention not to mention a response, you will need to post something worthwhile

Posted by warmick on 2011-01-07 18:39:57

Warmick,

Sorry, when you wrote &#8220In any other sport (yes I know, there IS sumo wrestling), the top athletes are always in superb shape&#8221 I thought you actually meant that. I didn&#8217t realize the claim came with unwritten caveats and exceptions about what types of sports, and what parts of athletes careers actually count. My mistake.

Posted by jvill on 2011-01-07 05:40:17

jvil

Yes, Babe Ruth was chubby but he performed in a sissy &#8220sport&#8221 the requirement for athletic prowess ranks just slightly above that needed for darts. George Foreman was not. Disregarding his silly comeback (which wasn&#8217t entirely without merit), Foreman was one of the most formidable and fearsome fighters ever.

I gave several reasons for &#8220hating on Cable&#8221 as you put it. I mentioned why it matters but being overweight was at the bottom of that list. Even so, that is the factor you and others choose to focus on. More disturbing to me, for example, is his alleged abuse of women but that apparently isn&#8217t even worth consideration.

Posted by warmick on 2011-01-06 16:43:59

warmick: In any other sport (yes I know, there IS sumo wrestling), the top athletes are always in superb shape. That could and should apply to football as well.Â

You mean like Babe Ruth and George Foreman? There have been a bunch of Greco Roman wrestling champions, even a few UFC guys who were chubby.

I can&#8217t believe you&#8217re hating on Cable as a football coach for being fat.

RalphW, I&#8217d argue that precisely because of #1 and #2 is why they have a bias&#8212I never saw an investor talk down his long investments. Both sources, yours and Ted&#8217s are accountable to clients and investors, both have reputations on the line.

As an aside: Roubini also called the subprime crash, as did Stiglitz, both of whom are now making similar predictions about the lack of municipal financial stability. Roubini is calling for another housing dip (which is supported by the decline in the Case Shiller index, whose recent October numbers were not good), which will directly and negatively impact state budgets.

I&#8217m biased myself because I tend to believe the thinker with a track record over the invested in these kinds of situations, but I also remember Jim Cramer (a member of my uncle&#8217s congregation!) telling everyone while on TV that Bear Sterns was fine, and that it was an insult to their employees to imply otherwise.

Posted by jvill on 2011-01-06 05:54:19

Thanks, Ted. As far as anyone&#8217s agenda, I might respond that by being port. managers, (1)they have skin in the game and (2)they have to be accountable to client.

Much like the DP writers can put out crap on a daily basis, they are not accountable to anyone to raise the bar of their articles. Maybe to an editor, but that&#8217s more than likely someone without much knowledge of football.

Her perspective in interesting and I do follow her (be it, with a grain of salt) fairly closely because she is keyed into a problem that will need to be addressed. Maybe by QE-3 next year?

A random stat: 1 of every 6 American workers is emplyed by the gov&#8217t. Either state, or local (source: dept of labor 8/16/10, issue #7).

Posted by RalphW on 2011-01-05 21:06:33

Ralph- That&#8217s an interesting link, and other points-of-view are always welcome. I would say that those guys manage a portfolio which includes municipal bonds, so they&#8217re not what you&#8217d call agenda-free in saying that.

In the video on CNBC in the link that I had above, Whitney talks about how most of the trouble lies in states and cities which comprise a large part of America&#8217s GDP. Mousseau and Comes cite Kansas, and they&#8217re right that some of the interior, more sparsely-populated, and less financially productive states do have less of a municipal debt crisis looming. The trouble is magnitude, though. They say that Whitney is painting with a broad brush, but she&#8217s attuned to what an auditor would call &#8220coverage&#8221, meaning that her brush is broad only because all states and cities aren&#8217t equal in magnitude, and she&#8217s focused on the ones that make up the majority of the muni market.

Posted by Ted Bartlett on 2011-01-05 20:18:49

I think Elway is positioning himself to buy the team later on. Bowlen has no children that are interested and it sound like his health/mental status are failing. He looks at John almost like a son. Elway has some money (not enough to buy the team alone) but could put together a partnership and prove by his work now that he should be managing partner. He would have no problem getting the blessing of the other owners. He could follow the Al Davis model and end up being majority owner. Bowlen loves this team and I am sure he will want to leave it in trusted hands and not just sold to the highest bidder. Hiring Elway is a very fortunate thing for Bronco fans. It must be looked at over the long term not just fixing the team over the next year or two. Bowlen will need to sell the team in the next few years and there is no one I would rather see buy it than John Elway. Owning the Broncos would be his dream come true.

Posted by mauibroncofan on 2011-01-05 19:29:21

Thanks TJ. It&#8217s not one of the &#8220participation&#8221 medals though where we all go out for pizza and capri son drinks afterwards though right? It&#8217s a real one? A really real one?

I think it&#8217s really lazy of most writers to only look for football comparisons when sports business can extend across any sport. And if you do cross the NBA and NFL you&#8217ll see Marino and Jordan who moved into the FO right after playing were disasters, but anyone who was successful post playing career and THEN went into the front office were more successful. Success is success though. Which is why great agents were previous great lawyers.

Posted by Joe Howard on 2011-01-05 19:26:49

Yes NDbronco, many great linemen are obese. There is no doubt in my mind that every one of them would be even better if he was in shape. That is one thing I admired about Shanahan, he insisted (and apparently still does) that his players were athletes. The media always used to refer to Denver&#8217s players during Shanahan&#8217s regime as &#8220small.&#8221 The truth is, they were as tall and as strong as anybody but they were also lighter and faster. In any other sport (yes I know, there IS sumo wrestling), the top athletes are always in superb shape. That could and should apply to football as well.

Posted by warmick on 2011-01-05 19:21:46

Joe Howard,

Do you want a medal for that point? Or a chest to pin in on? I&#8217m handing out both for you, buddy.

That comparison is awesome and apt as all heck!

Great point!

Posted by TJ Johnson on 2011-01-05 19:13:36

Warmick, Elway is certainly not a dense individual. His track record proves it. And, he doesn&#8217t have to make player decisions. That&#8217s not what his job is about. It&#8217s about making sure the GM and HC are in alignment to a strategy. There&#8217s a difference.

And, I pray to god (I&#8217m an atheist, btw) that the Raiders hire McDaniels. There&#8217s nothing more I&#8217d like than to see McDaniels shred that organization, taking that dried up freak Davis down the tubes with him. To ice the cake, I&#8217d love to see the Broncs steamroll that team, getting revenge for the humiliation it received these past two seasons.

McDaniels gets waaaay too much credit for the efforts of Brady and Belicik. The Patriots offense has not suffered since McDaniels worked there. If he was so much a genius like his proponents want to believ, we would&#8217ve seen productivity of that offense take a serious turn for the worse upon his departure. Truth is, Brady and Belicik make that team&#8217s offense, not McDaniels.

4-12. Fact. Open your eyes.

Posted by jtomasik on 2011-01-05 18:56:31

It&#8217s funny how it&#8217s said that Elway doesn&#8217t know X, Y, or Z as well as someone else, or what does he know about that. His role is management, and good management surrounds him/herself with people that know what they are doing. He ran the crush. He must have had some role in his car lots at some point. Even if he didn&#8217t, the business was successful, and that&#8217s probably from not sticking his nose in areas he doesn&#8217t know anything about. So Elway doesn&#8217t have to personally do all of the player evaluations&#8230that&#8217s what you hire other people for.

Cable did manage to coach his way to victory twice over the Chargers this year&#8230something I&#8217d like to see us emulate&#8230frequently. For that alone he gets a few kudos. The obese part was just a jab. Plenty of our lineman are obese too&#8230sugar coat it however you want.

Posted by NDbronco on 2011-01-05 18:52:06

It may cause some strife here or there, but I&#8217m with Ted in hiring Cable. Our team lacks grit and he would help give some to our O-line.

Al Davis was a moron to let him go&#8230Cable was the best thing that happened to the faders in years.

Posted by Sadaraine on 2011-01-05 18:47:57

I have a question. Why is Elway being compared to Millen and not Magic Johnson? I think Elway&#8217s and Johnson&#8217s careers and post retirement life are pretty similar. Both champions, face of the franchise players, very successful in business after playing, consulting posts within their organizations and both have a desire to BE in the front office. Not that someone gave them the job, but they&#8217ve desired and worked post-career in business and within their franchises to a degree to be in the front office.

Posted by Joe Howard on 2011-01-05 18:46:54

A year and a half ago, many of us thought Al Davis was kicking himself for missing out on getting McDaniels. I wouldn&#8217t be surprised if he was to make that wise move now.

Posted by warmick on 2011-01-05 18:31:10

One of the criticisms regarding McDaniels was that he was given too much responsibility in areas not directly related to coaching; a major one of those being in the area of evaluating and deciding on potential players to obtain. Supposedly the recent changes should improve the fortunes of the team and presumably Elway is now going to be taken on a key role in player assessment. If that is to be an improvement, then you would have to believe Elway is superior to McDaniels in gauging player personnel potential. THAT seems incredibly farfetched.

Elway has two things going for himâone of which is directly born out of the other: He was an amazingly gifted quarterback who basically singlehandedly took The Broncos to three (losing) Super Bowls and he is intensely popular being revered practically to the point of worship. Even if he (surprisingly) should turn out to be quite successful in his new role, that public image is about to take a major hit. Either Elway is too dense to see that, or he has an overinflated opinion of himself, or he simply just doesnât care.

As for Cable: Not only did he knock down an assistant but he is also reported to have a history of assaulting women. On top of that, he was unable to achieve success with a team many believe to be far more talented than The Broncos. Finally, he is grossly obese. What does that matter? Well, apart from depriving him of energy and stamina and thus the work output he COULD be capable of, someone who doesn’t even have the discipline of self control gets no respect from me and can’t be expected to enjoy respect from all the players. We don’t need him in Denver. I suggest he joins forces with Wink and see if they can obtain jobs as bookends at the Library of Congress.

Posted by warmick on 2011-01-05 18:28:19

Elway may not have any experience running an NFL team, but let&#8217s see what he does. I hope he does surround himself with the right people who can scout talent and help advise him along the way.

I also hope Xanders can show us he has a good idea of what he wants to see the franchise do, given that he&#8217ll have a major say in personnel decisions. While I am skeptical after having read that fluff piece a week ago, I want to see if he really does have better ideas for the direction the Broncos should take.

I read Ted&#8217s writings and agree with him that Gregg Williams would be a good HC candidate, but I&#8217d also be fine with Jim Harbaugh, Mike Mularkey or Rob Ryan. I really don&#8217t want Jim Fassel as he never was able to do well in any NFL capacity since his HC stint with the Giants ended. I also hope the Broncos can get an interview with Ron Rivera, another person I wouldn&#8217t mind having as Broncos HC.

And most of all, I hope Elway shows some patience when it comes to building the franchise. I agree he shouldn&#8217t tip his hand too much regarding Tebow, but I also do believe he, Xanders and everyone else involved should allow Tebow the chance to develop. While Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco did fine as rookies, they really didn&#8217t blossom into bona fide NFL starters until this season. And as I recall, Elway didn&#8217t really blossom until his third season. Tebow should be allowed the same opportunity and people who think otherwise should be careful about buying too quickly into the hype that surrounds other rookie QBs, with some MSM folks declaring them franchise QBs after their first season.

And really, franchise QB is a term that is vastly overused and often goes to QBs who the MSM loves to hype.

Posted by Bob Morris on 2011-01-05 18:04:51

Ted, I love your football stuff and more oft than not agree with your persepectives, but have to say that I am not a big M. whitney believer. I think she&#8217s over her head on this one. Here&#8217s the &#8220other side of the coin (aka &#8220why you should not listen to meredith whitney) from John Mousseau, CFA, and Michael Comes, Co-Author.

ps, just so this has something to do with football, I am really hoping the Elway hire brings some semblance of a proper organizational structure to the Broncos. I have always like mr. Bowlen, esp. in his willingness to &#8216hand off&#8217 football operations to to others that know better and not be the Dan Snyder/ Jerry jones type owner.

Posted by RalphW on 2011-01-05 18:04:47

CB- I wasn&#8217t explaining it away. I just figured that most people don&#8217t know Nance by name. I have 2 bachelors degrees, and I&#8217m on my way to an MBA from CSU, so clearly, I&#8217m pleased with the education I&#8217ve received, and continue to receive.

Urban universities are very important, because they serve as feeders to the local labor force in major metro areas. Most CSU grads stay in Cleveland, take entry level jobs in the area, and build careers here, which enhances the local economy, through a steady supply of qualified labor.

The funding issue for public higher education is a major problem across the country, which is exacerbated by strange priorities in places like Ohio. It has really been fueled by cuts from the federal government to states, over the last 10 years, which is a large part of the reason that so many states are in fiscal trouble. States are forced to cut things like higher education, and also disbursements that go to county and municipal governments to help fund services like plowing, police and fire, streetlights, and trash collection. That&#8217s the real trickle-down effect of trickle-down economics. Wealth doesn&#8217t trickle down, hardship does.

Here&#8217s the flow. Federal funding to states gets cut, which causes states to cut their spending, which causes county and municipal governments to cut their spending, which causes fewer jobs, and pay cuts and furloughs in the ones which survive, and a general degradation of the service levels citizens receive. Tax receipts are lower to states, and unlike the federal government, they can&#8217t run long-term deficits, so they&#8217re forced to cut even further.

A very smart analyst, Meredith Whitney, (she called the subprime crash well before it happened), is calling this the year of the municipal default. Many cities and states are in crisis situations, (check out the abysmally-run, secession-threatening Texas) and this is going to be a huge deal. It gets lost, but this is mostly caused by an economic view that federal taxation shouldn&#8217t be progressive, and that only concentrated capital creates the conditions for economic growth. Despite the fact that the jury is pretty much in that that&#8217s a completely bogus economic view, it continues to hold a lot of sway in America today, due to very effective messaging campaigns.

And, disclaimer alert, that wasn&#8217t about politics, it was about economics.

Posted by Ted Bartlett on 2011-01-05 17:37:29

Ted&#8212why would you explain away Cleveland State? Urban universities are important (albeit despised by the nutters in charge in Ohio) and I have many good friends who have been affiliated with the Levin College, which was fantastic at what it did until whoops we can&#8217t fund public education anymore even though we&#8217re rich, sorry.

What you&#8217re saying makes sense. Involving Elway essentially takes an extra step to reverse the problem of too many hats on one head. It lets the coach, coach and the GM, manage, and let&#8217s the Duke worry about intermediation and lets him basically be the ref on who does what job. If that&#8217s the case, sounds good.

Posted by Chibronx on 2011-01-05 17:06:31

Dennis,

I&#8217m not going to pass judgement on the Elway move without seeing the operation unfold or without knowing the inner workings of the front office itself.

However, someone needed to be brought in to break-up the power of Ellis a bit and there really is not too many options out there (without breaking the bank). Elway has credibility within the community and he surely has credibility with Bowlen.

The Broncos had to bring in a strong voice and someone to carry some of the load that Ellis had before this move. There may be better &#8220football&#8221 men out there, but either way someone had to be brought in

Posted by David Wilkie on 2011-01-05 16:41:24

Dennis, I&#8217m in agreement. Even though Xanders and Ellis are largely at fault for the crap that&#8217s been served over the past two seasons, the insertion of Elway might be exactly what the team needs to get back on the tracks.

I highly doubt a guy of Elway&#8217s caliber would put himself in position to be the fall guy. Ellis might be better at the top-level numbers than Bowlen, as reports have been that Bowlen has been struggling as of late with health issues. Elway gave Xanders a vote of confidence to fill personnel, but I&#8217ll bet Elway won&#8217t rubber-stamp everything Xanders does. And, it sounds like Elway is directly involved with scouting, evaluating, and hopefully hiring the head coach.

Elway&#8217s a smart guy. He always has been. I trust he still is.

Posted by jtomasik on 2011-01-05 16:38:37

Elway is different from Millen and Marino in that they kinda fell into their jobs. I remember an interview that asked Elway what he wanted to do after he retired as a player, this was while he was still playing, and he answered to be in a front office position in a football organization. i believe that this is what he wanted even before going to Stanford. I don&#8217t know, but this postion seems to fit John Elway as much as being a quarterback as a young man.

I like the Organization the way Ted speaks. Its coaches job to coach. Let them worry about working with what they got. Yet it requires a person that can communicate well what players he needs to accomplish his tasks to the GM and to Elway. Let the GM focus on what he is good at. Let Elway be the grease that brings these two together and make the final decision when it comes to differences between the two. What will determine whether Elway is good at his job is to know when to side with the coach and when to side with the GM. I think he can do this. Joe Ellis can concentrate on running the business of a football team which he seems to understand and keep him from being involved with the football side which it seems he doesn&#8217t understand. I like it.

Posted by sleepyteak on 2011-01-05 16:37:34

I might be an exception but I do not see a downside to Elway coming back to the Broncos. He was jettisoned by a former coach that has a jealousy streak and that was the dumbest move ever made in Bronco history. I think John gets it. He gets Denver, he gets Broncos history and he knows winning.

If he makes sure we have great scouts and a team that recognizes talent and Xanders can make it work financially we will be back in the &#8220saddle&#8221 (Bronco term, sweet) again.

Then again, what do I know <img alt="wink" height="19" src="http://www.singernet.com/images/smileys/wink.gif" style="border:0;" width="19">

Posted by Dennis Mitchell on 2011-01-05 16:34:11

Ted, I like the idea of hiring Cable as well. And if he has a personal grudge against the Raiders, that would be fine, too.

so I broke down the &#8220elway entering the building video&#8221 like the Zapruder tape:

1. Is that a convertable Bently? In denver? In January? Is that thing 4WD? AWD?

5. Is the coffee at Bronco HQ THAT bad that elway had to stop on the way? If you are the dude making coffee that morning, and John Elway shows up at the drive-through, do you specially make THE BEST damn cup-of-joe you&#8217ve ever made in your life? I would.

Posted by RalphW on 2011-01-05 16:25:29

I&#8217ve spent countless hours talking law with my dad and political strategy with my mom, but not one of you would be wise to hire me as your lawyer or political guru. I&#8217m not at all opposed to giving Elway a shot, but it could end poorly, and if folks think the fan base an local media are ugly and irrational now, just picture the venom if this little experiment fails. Hell hath no fury like unrealistic expectations scorned. Ain&#8217t nobody gonna remember that they were part of the juice behind the idea.

That said&#8212and I haven&#8217t had a chance to read any of Elway&#8217s comments today&#8212but everything I have heard from Elway indicates a guy that knows his limitations and who understands that his primary job is establishing cohesiveness between the real experts in the building&#8212Xanders and the head coach. I think Elway has proved repeatedly that he can manage people and projects, so here&#8217s hoping that this goes well.

Posted by Drewthorn on 2011-01-05 16:14:31

Ted,

I like the idea of Tom Cable. I thought he was doing a good job. I would love if, for once, we did some smash mouth football. I bet Cable would love to regularly destroy the Raiders. Seeing K.C.s turnaround, bringing in former head coaches to be coordinators doesn&#8217t seem like a bad idea. I hope you get your wish with the Gregg Williams idea. I&#8217m not too keen on a college football coach.

Posted by NDbronco on 2011-01-05 16:14:24

I like the idea of hiring Greg Williams especially if he can bring over the current Saints offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael Jr.

Carmichael worked as the passing game/Quarterback coach for the Saints for 4 years (I believe) and the Offensive Coordinator for the past season. Getting a guy like that to run the offense who has studied under Sean Payton and worked on the development of Drew Brees (was with Drew in San Diego as well) would be a big boost. Then let Greg Williams run the defense.

I think Ted Bartlett is right above about the structure of the team. My understanding is that Ellis is in charge of the business side of things (and since the NFL is a business) he is theoretically in charge of the entire team. However Elway is the guy in charge of the football side of things (a department within the entire organization) and Xanders is the guy that will be doing the grunt work for Elway.

In the end it is important that they all work together and function as a team (just like it is true for any major business that each work team strives to accomplish a singular organizational goal).

Posted by David Wilkie on 2011-01-05 16:14:09

How does this management heirarchy compare to other successful teams? Anyone know specifics?

How will Xanders&#8217 player-supply accomodate the needs of the team strategy, once a coach is found? That&#8217s my biggest concern.

CB- As a student at the James J Nance College of Business (Cleveland State University, WHAT?!), I&#8217ll take a run at it. To me, in this model, the General Manager is the guy who is responsible for managing the scouting and player procurement, including contract negotiation. He is not the Head Coach&#8217s boss, and coaching is treated as another separate functional area of the business. (I would personally endorse this view, and the separation of powers that goes along with it.)

The VP of Football Operations is the boss of both the Head Coach and the General Manager. He&#8217s responsible for ensuring that the work products of both functional areas combine to form a good final product on the field. Elway will be the guy who runs the meetings, and seeks the consensus among all the football people.

From a B-school perspective, this is kind of like having separate Directors of Product Development, Advertising and Promotion, Pricing, and Packaging all report to a VP of Marketing. Those are four different functional areas, with different focuses and skill-sets, but they combine to form the larger marketing operation, and it makes sense to strategically integrate the operations at a single point, embodied by the VP of Marketing.

Posted by Ted Bartlett on 2011-01-05 15:55:48

Bronco Country gets its very own moment of zen thanks to our friends at the DP.

O&B&#8212If Elway is just a figurehead, GOOD. I liked him for this job b/c a) he clearly seemed to understand his own limits, b) anything to wrest power from Joe Ellis, c) anything to end the two-year tantrum from our fans, and d) anything, ANYTHING to wrest power from Joe Ellis. Woody saying &#8220thank you sir, may I have another&#8221 is just a bonus. A wonderful bonus.

I will cop to being confused about how the distinction between VP of Football Operations and GM works. Once Elway&#8217s more than just a figurehead, I find it difficult to grasp. Can any of you B-school types out there explain this one?

Posted by Chibronx on 2011-01-05 15:35:31

This may be blasphemous to some, but I&#8217d personally endorse hiring Tom Cable as an Assistant Head Coach/Offensive Line. He had the Raiders HITTING, and they got their running game blocked as well as anybody in the NFL this season, without a great deal of individual talent up front. The whole punching-the-assistant thing was ugly, but he&#8217s seemingly behaved since then. Just a thought&#8230

Posted by Ted Bartlett on 2011-01-05 15:24:35

A Stanford guy should be instilling more confidence than this move is giving me. I don&#8217t think it&#8217s going to give us much of advantage.

He MAY have as good of a chance to influence the team positively as any other experienced FO executive. So does this make me happy? It doesn&#8217t affect me one way or the other unless he pushes Fassel too much. His lone decision that matters is his influence on the next coach. Otherwise, Elway will be a figurehead (IMO) that we&#8217ll see camera shots of in the owners suite during games.

Posted by Orange and Blue on 2011-01-05 15:01:10

I don&#8217t really see anything wrong with what Elway said about Tebow. Nobody should necessarily be publically sure about Tebow except for me, and I only should be sure because I&#8217ve always been. I&#8217ve been emphatically on record for a couple years now, and if Tebow flames out, which he won&#8217t, I&#8217m prepared to admit that I was wrong.

Elway, though, needs to be a little bit detached. He&#8217s coming into a new role, and wasn&#8217t involved in picking Tebow. He has to be hopeful that it&#8217s going to work, and reasonably sure that it will, but he can&#8217t tell Woody Paige that he&#8217s 100% sure, because if he&#8217s wrong, it will damage his credibility. I&#8217m a dude who writes about football on the internet, so I can afford to take a hit, but he&#8217s the rookie VP of Football Operations, and he really can&#8217t.

I do prefer a defensive coach, and I think Gregg Williams is the best in the NFL. I feel better about that conclusion all the time, in fact. Ordinarily, I prefer offensive guys, just since most of my personal knowledge is on the offensive side, but the Broncos need to build a program around defense, just because they&#8217ve had so much turnover on that side of the ball. This is a special case, because there are a lot of parts that play with no particular cohesion after 6 Defensive Coordinators in 6 years.

With the second pick in the draft, they should have the opportunity to get a key front-seven building block, and they can get right to building a competent defense for 2011, and a good one for the years to come. With all of the young talent on the offensive side, I feel good about that direction, given a good, mostly autonomous offensive coordinator.

Posted by Ted Bartlett on 2011-01-05 14:57:29

Did Bowlen just step down today and appoint Ellis as team president?

Posted by diviesti on 2011-01-05 14:43:07

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Tebow by Elway.

Posted by bradley on 2011-01-05 14:35:21

Well, if the likes of Woody are going to swallow whatever steaming turds the Broncos send them, only to ask for more, this is a great, great move.

Yeah, the Duke&#8217s summary of Xanders&#8217 study doesn&#8217t inspire confidence. But let&#8217s be generous. It sounds like Xanders came up with some criteria for success, looked at the success rate for hires from each side of the ball, and found it was within the margin of error. His definition of success could be unworkable (even tautological?), and coding coaches as offensive/defensive could bury the actual characteristics that make a difference. But the mere instinct to confirm which kind of hire works out better, is a good one. The guy whose baseball team is about to benefit from Alderson/DePodesta/Ricciardi should like this.